A recipe for Greek spaghetti with meat sauce offers a way to enjoy Mediterranean diet flavors at home, according to a recent feature. The dish comes from Kelly Jaggers’ book, The Everything Mediterranean Instant Pot Cookbook.
The recipe calls for ingredients such as spaghetti, olive oil, white onion, lean ground veal, white wine, tomato sauce, a cinnamon stick, bay leaves, garlic, and grated aged myzithra or Parmesan cheese. The method involves cooking the pasta in an Instant Pot, then preparing the meat sauce in the same appliance.
To make the sauce, the cook sautés onion and veal, then adds salt, pepper, wine, and tomato sauce. The cinnamon stick, bay leaves, and garlic are stirred in before the pot is sealed and cooked for five minutes under pressure. After cooking, the cinnamon and bay leaves are removed.
The pasta is served in a bowl, topped with cheese and the meat sauce. The recipe serves five people. Nutritional information per serving is listed as 550 calories, 22 grams of protein, 17 grams of fat, and 72 grams of carbohydrates. The feature notes that increasing the veal to one pound or using high-protein pasta could boost the protein content.
The Mediterranean diet is often described as a healthy eating pattern, focusing on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and olive oil, with moderate amounts of fish and poultry. This recipe incorporates several elements of that pattern, including olive oil, lean meat, and aromatic spices like cinnamon and bay leaves.
The article suggests pairing the meal with red wine and serving it with family or friends. It also notes that Greek myzithra cheese is preferred for authenticity, but Parmesan can be used as a substitute. The recipe is excerpted from Jaggers’ cookbook, published in 2020 by Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
